AustLit

'Remembering Migration: Oral Histories and Heritage in Australia offers important new insights into what constitutes ‘migration history’ and ‘migration heritage’ in Australia. The book, edited by Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, is a timely, interdisciplinary contribution that effectively stipulates how oral history, together with memory and heritage studies, can distinctly inform us about migrations to Australia. Twenty-one chapters – written by an assortment of seasoned, mid-career, and promising early career researchers – present a rich diversity of methodological approaches, detailed case studies, as well as migrant ethnicities and recollections. Examining how ‘individuals, communities and the nation have commemorated and recorded the experiences of migration’, Remembering Migration pays serious attention to an area of Australian history that is often emotionally charged and politically fraught (4). It sets out to consider how migrants in Australia remember, retain and rework their pasts and it critically centres how ‘small stories or single accounts of migration’ add relevant meaning to the broader processes of Australian heritage making (11). Untold stories are brought to life; familiar stories are reframed anew; and the entangled relations between migrant pasts and presents are presented with fresh historical dynamism. This dynamism is sustained on two fronts: by reinstating the value of oral history for understanding the phenomenon of migration and by revealing how stories of migrancy are complexly sourced, sorted and represented by Australian heritage sectors.' (Introduction)